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Lahr finally gets his due

A group of diehard old Colorado Buffaloes are reuniting this weekend for a celebration 50 years in the making.

You see, Colorado used to have a pretty good wrestling team once upon a time. That should be no surprise considering the illustrious track record the state's high schools have of producing great wrestlers going back decades.

Dean Lahr was one of CU's greatest grapplers. He earned two national titles in 1963 and 1964 at 177 pounds and was named the nation's most outstanding wrestler at the 1964 national tournament.

Considering those credentials, it's hard to fathom how it took five decades following the conclusion of his college career for Lahr to earn induction into the College Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla. Thankfully the veterans committee recognized the omission and made it right earlier this year by including Lahr in the 2014 class.

The CU wrestling program was cut from the athletic department along with six others on June 11, 1980. Having no program can often lead to no one advocating for past performers from the defunct team for honors such as the one Lahr is finally experiencing this weekend.

"It was pleasant news, let's put it that way," Lahr said Friday during a phone interview. "...It's gratifying to see something that you worked hard for (honored). It's a reflection on what hard work can get you."

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Lahr will be surrounded by a contingent of his family, including his wife Beverly, as well as his former teammates, particularly members of the 1964 team that finished tied for fourth in the nation. He will also see his former coaches, Linn Long, who served two stints as CU's wrestling coach in the early 1950s and most of the 1960s and former Denver North High School coach Joe Klune, who made the trip for the induction at 90 years old.

Lahr, who is now 72 and a longtime resident of another Pac-12 Conference town in Eugene, Oregon, said he wouldn't have achieved any of his major accomplishments without Long and Klune's guidance.

"When I was wrestling I was really fortunate as far as coach Long and coach Klune developing skills and that sort of thing," he said.

Coincidentally, CU announced this week that Long will be one of nine inductees into the CU Hall of Fame later this fall. But as good as Long was as a coach, he doesn't get much of the credit for recruiting Lahr to Boulder.

Lahr was a year behind his high school sweetheart in school and when she chose to attend CU, she made Lahr's decision as well. Dean and Beverly Lahr have been married now for 52 years. They had two boys and now have two grandchildren.

Lahr wasn't focused on wrestling from the start. He was a football player at heart and only took up wrestling on the advice of his father as a way to stay in shape for football. It turned into some of the best advice he ever received.

Earning induction into the hall of fame has reignited a fire that has always burned inside Lahr since that day in 1980 when the CU program was cut. Talking with former teammates, his coaches and others about how wrestling served them has convinced him more than ever that it could be serving other young men and women these days and helping provide opportunities for some to further their education.

Lahr said he plans to lobby CU officials to bring wrestling back to Boulder as soon as possible. He said as popular as the sport is at the high school level in the state and as many college wrestlers as Colorado produces each year would make it easy for CU to produce a competitive program rather quickly.

Unfortunately, we already know Lahr and his supporters won't receive the answers they'd like to hear, at least not right now. CU is in no position to be adding sports of any kind with an operations budget deficit and owing the school more than $20 million.

"If you've got the wherewithal to put hundreds of millions of dollars into facilities, I think you ought to be able to come up with the money to put a team on the mat, or two teams if you have to add a women's team," Lahr said.

The reality is, the money for facilities comes in private donations and is not part of the operational budget. People often stumble over that forgetting to separate the two.

But the basic idea Lahr has will be worthy of discussion in another few years when CU gets out of debt and back on track financially and arrives at a point where adding a sport or two might be feasible. The man has a point about how college wrestling might be able to attract decent crowds in Boulder considering the passion that exists for the sport at the high school level.

Maybe the door that was finally opened for Dean Lahr will eventually lead to another young man or woman achieving greatness on a wrestling mat in Boulder while proudly wearing the Colorado name.

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